


fuck pride (and the other guy)

by finding



Series: i don't want your body (but i hate to think about you with somebody else) [7]
Category: High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (TV)
Genre: Asking for consent is sexy, First Time, M/M, ej and ricky talk like adults, emotional healing cause these boys have trauma, ricky and his dad bond while camping, this is much softer than i intended
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25661443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finding/pseuds/finding
Summary: “Are you in love with me?” EJ asks.“No,” Ricky says, and he knows it’s the truth, “but I think I could. Love you, I mean. If you let me.”or: Ricky goes camping. Ricky gets a smoothie. Ricky skates and spends a lot of time trying not to think about EJ. EJ mostly just wants to know why Ricky’s been pacing on his driveway for the past ten minutes.
Relationships: Ricky Bowen/E.J. Caswell
Series: i don't want your body (but i hate to think about you with somebody else) [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1760380
Comments: 35
Kudos: 107





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> please please PLEASE read parts 1-6 first. like this just really won’t make sense as a standalone sis, but do as you please.
> 
> hi guys! this is basically a “part one” to a two part chapter that i have planned out, but i wanted to get this out asap so i figured i’d just post the part i had done. be on the lookout for a s*x scene coming out soon cause i’ve made y’all wait for it. 
> 
> huge shout out to flow3rs for helping me work through my writer's block and also listening to me complain about this show until like 2 am in the morning. go check out all her series!!!!!!! she contributes a LOT to this fandom and rj, and if you aren't already reading her fics, wtf are u even doing here. 
> 
> title from 2 soon by keshi cause it's basically my anthem for this series.

Ricky doesn’t go to any parties for a while, but EJ does. EJ drinks and watches girls dance and sometimes he dances with them, but he doesn’t take them home.

Ricky doesn’t go to any parties, but he hears about them from Big Red. He texts Ricky a lot to ask him if he needs a ride or if he’s going to show up that night. Ricky always says no. Red posts on his Snapchat story, blurry videos of dancing and shots and karaoke. (Ricky thinks he catches a glimpse of EJ in the background of one video. He watches it over and over until he’s _certain_ that that’s EJ with his arm around a girl.)

Big Red calls him when he’s drunk, says stuff like “EJ’s here and he looks depressed as _shit_ ” and “You know you’re just self-sabotaging, right?” Ricky just listens along, says _yeah_ and _okay_ before asking Red to give the phone to Ashlyn so Ricky can make sure his friend gets back alright.

The thing is, Ricky’s not sulking. He’s not. He got over the sulking part after a few days when he realized that this is stupid. He’s being stupid, and so is EJ. They’re being childish and selfish and fighting because it’s easier than confronting what’s really going on between them. Ricky knows all these things—he understands how they fucked everything up. He can even play it out, plausibly, in his head, how they can fix it.

It doesn’t change anything, though.

The thing is: they’re not good for each other. Something dangerous and untamed unfurls inside him when he’s with EJ. Like Ricky could do anything to him. Like he’d do anything _for_ him. Ricky knows how this ends for them: they kiss and fight and fall in love and it’s good and fast and he’ll be really fucking happy for a little while and then it will end. It’ll end because EJ goes to college or Ricky goes off the rails again or one of them can’t say _I love you_. Ricky knows how to fix this. He’s just not really sure he should.

So, Ricky doesn’t go to parties for a while. Instead, he spends some time by himself. He goes to the skatepark, and when the guys ask him why he’s been MIA for the last month, he just shrugs and heads for the familiar curve of the half-pipe he’s used since he was ten. He goes to the smoothie stand down on Grand—the one with the kind lady with long brown hair and eyes like a mother—and sits on the curb drinking a 32 oz Banana Dream that she wouldn’t let him pay for. (His mom used to tell him that sometimes she would go out to dinner by herself, three course meal and everything. _You should take yourself on a date sometime,_ she said, _How do you expect to love anyone if you haven’t fallen in love with yourself yet?_ )

His dad announces one day that they’re going up to Cibola for a weekend, and Ricky agrees without much arguing. His dad and him haven’t gone camping since mom left. They used to go on the weekends she’d be traveling for _work_ , whether that was the truth or not. Ricky wonders if his dad would make them come out here because he couldn’t stand to be in the house without her, knowing where she was and who she was with.

Ricky pitches the tent while his dad tries and fails to start a fire. It rained last night, in some rare twist of fate, since rainstorms in New Mexico summers come far and few between. All the wood they can gather is soaked, and his dad has already used up all their lighter fluid in vain.

“Well,” his dad says, staring morosely at the soaked piled of wood in front of him.

“It’s okay,” Ricky responds, drilling the last stake into the ground with his hammer. “I packed some bread and peanut butter just in case. I figured we didn’t want a repeat of summer 2017.”

His dad shudders. “I still regard that as my biggest failure as a father. How was _I_ supposed to know that fires weren’t allowed with the drought? There should be some—some _signs_ or something.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Ricky says, dropping the mallet down by their bags. He’s pretty sure that there _were_ signs—big red metal ones, if he recalls—that clearly explained the ban on campfires, but he doesn’t want to bring up a sore subject. 

“So,” his dad says, sitting down on the picnic table and resting his hands on his knees. “What do you want to do first?”

Ricky scratches the back of his neck. “I was thinking we could hike for a little. Maybe find that place with the cliff again?”

His dad’s face breaks out into a smile. “I was hoping you’d say that! Let’s go. I just need to find my backpack first…”

His dad does find his backpack, eventually (the one that is filled with an irrational number of supplies they really don’t need for a three-hour hike). They walk for an hour and a half up the slope before finding the cliff. They break through a tree-lined path and find themselves on a small outcropping. Bright yellow flowers creep out of cracks in the surface, and the stone is cool under Ricky’s palms when he kneels down to look out at the horizon.

After a while, they start talking—the air between them was heavy with unspoken things during the entire trip up here, like they were both just waiting to see who would bring it up first.

“Do you miss mom?” Ricky asks, his voice more sure than he thought it would be. He doesn’t sound scared when he asks.

His dad sighs and looks at the ground. “Sometimes, yeah. Mostly I just wish she was here for you, though,” he glances at Ricky, then, and Ricky lets out a breath. “I wish she was here to take care of you. She’s always understood you better than I do. But I’m okay without her.”

Ricky bites his cheek, holds back something that’s lodged in his throat. He doesn’t say anything, just follows the line of the mountains in front of him.

“We really loved each other,” his dad continues. “For a while, we loved each other and we got married and had you and it was really good. And then we fell out of love. It took me a while to realize that that’s okay.”

Ricky breathes, _one two_. “What do you mean?”

His dad nods. “I mean that I wouldn’t trade what your mom and I had for anything. We’ll love each other till we die. We’re just not _in_ love with each other, and that’s okay.”

“Like me and Nini,” Ricky says quietly.

“Like you and Nini,” his dad repeats.

“If you could go back in time, would you do it again?” Ricky asks, turning his head to look at his dad. “Would you love her even if you knew that meant she was gonna leave some day?”

His dad’s mouth quirks up in a small smile and he lets out a soft laugh. “Yeah, I think I would. There were a lot of good days. A lot of good memories. And you, too,” he says.

“It’s worth the bad stuff and the leaving,” Ricky says, more of a statement than a question.

“Falling in love with someone like her… it’s worth the leaving,” his dad says, and Ricky doesn’t know if he believes him, but he wants to. He wants to believe that it’s worth it.

Later, when they’re packing up and on their way back to a tan house in Albuquerque, Ricky realizes that he hasn’t thought about EJ for an entire day. He’s happy, for the first time, completely alone. He has peanut butter sandwiches that stick to the roof of his mouth and a cliffside and a dad who’s trying, really trying, and bright yellow flowers growing through the cracks in the stone. Ricky is alone with these small things, and he’s happy.

A week after Cibola, Ricky goes to EJ’s house.

There are a few reasons he goes:

  1. Ricky’s tired of staying home on the weekends, but he can’t go to parties because he _knows_ EJ will be there. He needs to have this conversation if he wants to be able to go back without wanting to punch EJ in the jaw every time he sees him with someone else.
  2. School starts in a few weeks, which means the musical is coming soon. Ricky knows, despite all his protests, that he’s somehow going to end up auditioning. EJ will audition too, and he doesn’t want a repeat of last year.
  3. He misses EJ. A lot. Ricky misses him and he thinks he might keep missing him until this is really over.



He skates over on a Thursday evening. It's, like really fucking hot even for New Mexico, and the pavement radiates heat under his board. He realizes, when he’s a block away, that he should probably have texted EJ to see if he’d even be home. When he swerves into the driveway, EJ’s Jeep isn’t parked out front. Shit.

Ricky rolls to a stop and stand in the driveway for a second before picking up his board. He walks up to the front door and knocks, once, twice, but there’s no answer. _Whatever_ , he thinks, putting his board back down, _not like I don’t have time to waste._

He’s on his fifth circuit of EJ’s driveway (it’s one of those half-circle ones that only people with money to waste can afford) when the front door opens.

“What the fuck are you doing?” EJ asks, his arms folded over his chest. He’s wearing cut-of grey sweatpants and an oversized red sweatshirt. He looks tired.

“I knocked,” Ricky offers.

“I was in the backyard,” EJ says. He gazes down at Ricky’s skateboard. Ricky wants to know why.

“Can I come in?”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” EJ says slowly, refusing to meet his gaze.

“I just want to talk,” Ricky pauses. “Please?”

EJ studies his face for a second. “Fine.” He turns and walks back inside, not waiting for Ricky to follow. Ricky leans his board against the porch and walks up the steps into the house.

“You have a really nice house,” Ricky shouts when he walks into the entrance. He thinks it might be called a _foyer_ , or at least that’s what they say on the house hunting shows he watches when nothing else is on. EJ doesn’t respond, instead just walking straight through to the living room, and then out the sliding glass door into the backyard. It’s a very _open-concept_ first floor, the house-hunting people would say.

Ricky pauses to look at the photos on the mantlepiece of the fireplace. In one, EJ’s sitting in a high-backed chair in front of his parents. His dad has one hand on EJ’s shoulders, his fingers gripping if only a little too tightly. His mom has a realtor smiler on and freshly curled hair. None of them look very happy.

Ricky doesn’t realize he’s picked up the picture and started studying it until EJ interrupts him.

“Don’t touch that,” he says, leaning in the doorway. “Mom doesn’t like it when she finds fingerprints on the glass. And trust me, she’ll find them.”

“I’m sorry,” Ricky says, and he means it. EJ’s house feels scarily pristine, and he looks for any piece of evidence that someone lives here (an unfolded blanket or a bag of Doritos spilled on the carpet, even). There’s nothing, really, except for a half-empty glass of water on the counter and a backpack leaning against a cabinet.

“C’mon, let’s talk outside. I can’t stand it in here,” EJ says, gesturing towards the backyard again. Ricky nods and follows him out.

There’s a pool, because of course there’s a pool. It’s rectangular and pretty long, actually, and Ricky wonders if that’s so EJ can swim laps. He wonders how often EJ comes out here to swim.

EJ sits down on the edge of a pool chair and folds his arms over his knees. Ricky’s not sure where to sit, so he just stands. They don’t say anything.

“Jesus Christ, just sit down. You’re making me nervous,” EJ says finally.

Ricky wonders if EJ can tell how nervous _he_ is. He’s played this scene out in his head about a million fucking times, like he’s learning the lines for a script, but now it’s opening night and he’s not sure he remembers anything. There’s a few things— _I’m sorry_ and _maybe we can try to_ and _I know you don’t want_ and _only one more year, let’s just_ —but none of them fit together in the right way. 

“Sorry,” he says, sitting down on the edge of the pool. He kicks his shoes off and dips his feet into the water. It’s warm. _(Texas-water warm, calf-deep warm, love-worth-the-leaving warm)._

EJ looks at him sharply. “Can you stop apologizing? It’s annoying.”

“Uh—”

“You don’t need to apologize for anything. If that’s why you’re here, I mean.”

Ricky looks down at his feet. They’re distorted in the water, and the way the light slants makes it look like his ankles aren’t attached to the rest of his legs. “That’s not why I’m here.”

“Thank fucking God,” EJ says, resting his chin in his hands. “Big Red won’t stop apologizing for you. It’s always _I’m sorry Ricky’s acting like that_ and _It’s not his fault cause blah blah blah_.”

“Yeah, he’s kind of always been like that. He doesn’t like when people are around him are unhappy. He says it messes with his chakras. I still have no clue what a chakra is.”

EJ snorts, and then let’s out a sigh. Ricky’s forgotten, over the last few weeks, how easy it is to talk to EJ.

“I fucking hate it here, did you know that?” EJ asks all of the sudden, staring on Ricky. “No mountains, no trees, just the desert and these suburbs for miles in every goddamn direction. Can’t even breath sometimes when I’m out here. It’s like everyone can see you from every fucking direction.”

Ricky doesn’t really understand. He likes wide, open spaces with nowhere to hide, but he understands the feeling of being trapped under everyone’s eyes. “I thought you liked people looking at you.”

“Sometimes,” EJ says with a smirk, and just like that, he’s back to the EJ that terrifies Ricky and draws him in and makes his blood run hot and cold.

“Anyways,” Ricky says, clearing his throat. “So, hypothetically, let’s say we plan to meet up at a party on a Friday night after I call you, just a little wine drunk the night before.”

“Hypothetically,” EJ says drily. “Sure.”

“And, hypothetically, Nini pulls me aside at this party before you get there to tell me that she’s moving to Colorado. Nini, who is not only my ex-girlfriend but also probably my best friend, too. So, I give her a hug, and yeah, maybe it lasts a little bit too long, but I figure it’s not a big deal.” Ricky stops for a second.

“Keep going,” EJ says.

“Okay, so,” Ricky starts again, “I’m hugging her, and this whole time I’m like “Fuck, EJ’s gonna be here soon and if he sees me with her he’s going to completely misunderstand it”—not because you’re dumb or anything, you’re just kind of irrationally jealous for some reason” Ricky explains when EJ shoots him an exasperated look. “Okay, so then I’m _really_ fucked when you actually do show up, and I’m already freaking out because one of my closest friends is moving right before our junior year and also I have no idea what I’m supposed to say to you. So.”

“A bad combination,” EJ offers, his face blank.

Ricky nods. “Yeah, so you know what happens next. You disappear, I try to find you, blah blah blah. By the time I do, you’re hanging out in a fucking barn for some reason, at least four beers in somehow, even though it had only been like 10 minutes.”

“Are you just telling me this story for kicks or is there a punch line?” EJ asks, looking bored, but Ricky knows better. EJ’s not bored because EJ loves a good story, especially one where he’s a main character.

“Just wait,” Ricky says, and now he’s leaning forward, making waves in the water with his fingertips. “So you’re drunk and I’m crazy and both of us are really scared and angry because we’ve dated the same girl and now we’re fucking—or, not _really_ fucking, but you get the point—and I drunk called you and said some shit about wearing you jacket and… it’s a mess, yeah? It’s a big goddamn mess.”

“Can I have that jacket back?” EJ asks, but Ricky just shoots him a glare and ignores it.

“So I say some mean stuff about your dad, which even if it’s true, it was mean. And you say we wouldn’t even be able to date realistically, which even if it’s true, it was kind of shitty. And we’re shouting and screaming at each other and finally you say that I’m gonna find someone else because you’re replaceable.”

EJ’s not looking at him now, instead focusing his hard gaze on the horizon. The sun’s going down, and it’s not a spectacular sunset by any means, but it’s pink and orange and golden around the edges.

“And you’re probably right,” Ricky says carefully. EJ’s doesn’t look at him. “I don’t really need you in my life to be okay. I could probably find someone else to waste this year with and it would be fun, but—”

EJ’s jaw clenches. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Can you let me finish?” Ricky asks softly. “I could find someone else, probably, or I could be alone, or fuck all else, and I’d be okay. But I don’t really want to be okay when I could be with you,” EJ’s head whips up. “Is that cheesy. Fuck, I knew you’d think it was cheesy, but Big Red told me it was a really good line and—”

“Ricky,” EJ says, and finally looks at him. He looks tired and kind of beautiful in a way that Ricky never expected.

EJ said he would get bored and lonely and he would go find someone else. He doesn’t. Ricky doesn’t want anyone else. He wants EJ, his shark-teeth smile, swimmer’s shoulders, a white Jeep in a sunset parking lot, three rounds of expensive whiskey down his throat just because he _can_.

(He wants other things too, things that belong in the dark, in the shadows of their memories. He wants lips on his neck, the semi-circle mark of teeth on his hipbones, fingertips pressing into his thighs, holding him down. He wants these things, too, but not as much as he just wants to feel EJ under him, solid and real and here to stay.)

Ricky meets his eyes, blue-green in the setting sun. “So in the hypothetical universe I’m saying that I like you. Like in the way that I want to go on dates with you and go to prom together even though we both hate prom and maybe even have sex in, like, a real bed.”

EJ laughs, so Ricky continues. This is going better than he thought it would. “Things started out really shitty between us, so I think we kind of had to end up here. Inevitable, yeah? Like we’re made to destroy each other or something. But I don’t want to end it like this. And I understand if we’re not on the same page and you’re really not in a place for a relationship, but I can’t keep ignoring whatever this _thing_ is between us and—”

“Are you in love with me?” EJ asks. The light of the sunset casts a shadow along his jaw, making his face appear angular and sharp. Like it would slice Ricky’s skin open if he touched him.

“No,” Ricky says, and he knows it’s the truth, “but I think I could. Love you, I mean. If you let me.”

EJ is silent for a moment, and then, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay. Fuck it. Let’s go on a date.”

Ricky laughs, feels something unfurl in his chest, and bites his tongue. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” EJ says, and he’s smiling. “But I’m gonna warn you. I’m not nice. I’m not a good boyfriend.”

Ricky hums and swings his legs under the water. “I know. I don’t want nice. I want you.”

“You’ve got a death wish, Bowen,” EJ says, shaking his head.

“Oh, one more thing,” Ricky says suddenly.

“What?”

“I think I’m bisexual, but that’s like, the least important thing right now since you just said you’d be my boyfriend.”

EJ snorts. “Number one, I never said I was your boyfriend. I promised you _one_ date. One. Singular. Number two, I could have told you that you were bisexual in like, eighth grade.”

“You didn’t even know me in eighth grade,” Ricky points out.

“I knew who you were,” EJ says assuredly. Ricky cocks his head in confusion. “I had to go to my weird-ass cousin’s ballet show when I was a freshman, and I think you must have been there for Red’s sister or something—” Ricky’s not really sure how EJ knows Big Red has a sister, but he doesn’t interrupt, “—and I was so goddamn _bored_ that I went outside and you were doing the same shitty kickflips you do every night in the parking lot. Your head was shaved. It was cute.”

Ricky stares at him, horrified. “Oh my god, you knew me when I had my head shaved. What the _fuck_. How do you remember that?”

“Cause I’m super-fucking-smart,” EJ says slowly. He grins, a shark-teeth smile and swimmer’s shoulders and a jaw that’ll slice Ricky’s skin when he touches it. “C’mon, let’s go upstairs.”

Ricky’s jaw drops, just a little. “Are we about to have sex in a real bed?”

“A _king-sized_ bed,” EJ says, his eyebrows raised, “with 1000 count Egyptian sheets.”


	2. is that an ace up your sleeve or are you just happy to see me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m not panicking,” Ricky says after a moment, his breathing labored. “This is normal.”
> 
> “This is normal for you?” EJ asks, and it’s half-smirk, half-worried. Ricky doesn’t know what to do with the knowledge that he’s grown to recognize this as EJ’s version of being nice.
> 
> “Yes,” Ricky says, and then, “No. I don’t know. Is this normal for you?”
> 
> “Someone hyperventilating under me? Let me think,” EJ says contemplatively. “No.”
> 
> or: The one where they have sex. In a real bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here you go, lovers and friends. 
> 
> if you saw me crying while i wrote this, no you didn't :)

“Oh,” Ricky says, unmoving in the doorway. “That’s a bed.”

“A+ work Bowen, really,” EJ mumbles, his hands on Ricky’s shoulders, a light pressure urging him forward.

Ricky tries to shake him off. “Stop manhandling me.”

EJ scoffs and pretends to sound hurt. “I thought you _liked_ it when I manhandled you.” EJ spins him around so they’re facing each other. EJ’s still tall. Ricky still hates it.

“You still wanna do this?” EJ asks. Ricky wonders how he can make asking for explicit consent sound so offhanded. His parents probably made him take speech lessons since he was three so that he’d have the manners of an east-coast Senator and the disposition of a Californian frat boy. When Ricky doesn’t answer, EJ asks again, “I’m gonna need a yes or no, Bowen.”

“Yes,” Ricky says. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t like apologetic Ricky,” EJ says, his mouth turning down at the edges. 

Ricky doesn’t meet his eyes. “Are you sure you even like me at all?” It’s a joke, and it isn’t. EJ doesn’t laugh.

“Sure, I like you,” EJ says confidently. His hands grip Ricky’s waist, and he leans forward so they’re nearly nose to nose. “I like you a hell of a lot more than I like anyone else right now.”

“I’m going to take that as a compliment,” Ricky says unsurely. The way EJ’s staring at him, unblinking and open, makes him nervous.

EJ leans even closer and Ricky thinks they might kiss, but then EJ moves so his cheek is pressed against Ricky’s. They stand like that, for a moment that’s both so long and so short that Ricky can’t fit into the way he usually thinks about time (which is to say, not much at all, because Ricky doesn’t usually contemplate the linear passage of time). EJ’s hands are on his hips, fingers spread like the branches on a tree, like roots growing down into the earth, and Ricky thinks of how the part of him that makes him want EJ can’t be separated from the part of him that makes him Ricky anymore, thinks of the wanting growing into him and threading into his muscles and bones. EJ breathes out slowly, warm on his cheek, and Ricky aches with how much he _wants._

“I like you,” EJ says, and something inside Ricky shatters. Like glass. Like the surface of a lake when a stone is thrown into it. Like waves breaking on a shore.

“Okay,” Ricky replies, and he reaches a palm up to cup EJ’s cheek. “Yes.”

EJ pulls back and takes a long look at him like it’s the last time and the first time he’s seeing him. Then, he’s kissing Ricky, and Ricky thinks, _Oh, this is how it’s supposed to feel._ He’s not sure what _it_ is, love or lust or two people colliding for just a second before they ricochet or detonate or something in between. It feels good, though, hurts in the way that real and beautiful things sometimes do.

Ricky slides his tongue across EJ’s bottom lip. EJ’s mouth parts, and Ricky wants to feel each one of those perfect teeth, white and straight and worth every one of the thousands of dollars he paid for them. Ricky wants those teeth on his neck, like, yesterday.

EJ moves one hand to the back of his head, pushes his fingers into Ricky’s curls, and that nudges something desperate and aching inside him closer to its breaking point. EJ’s fingernails scrape against his scalp as he pulls Ricky closer, deeper into the kiss, their bodies fitted together. EJ hums into his mouth as Ricky digs his fingers into EJ’s back, and he wonders if EJ took his shirt off, whether he could leave marks on the wide expanse of his skin. The thought of it makes him dizzy.

“God,” EJ groans quietly, pulling back and panting into the slant line of Ricky’s mouth, “fucking perfect for me.”

Ricky exhales, shaky, and kisses the corner of EJ’s mouth. “I like you,” he whispers, because he’s afraid if he doesn’t say it, EJ might forget, might take it back.

EJ just grips him tighter by way of reply, brings their mouths back together and kisses Ricky until he’s drunk with it. He knows he’s hard in his jeans with the hazy awareness that also tells him EJ is too. He's got one leg slotted in between Ricky’s and is backing them into the bed like he has some sixth sense of where it is without needing to look. Ricky wouldn’t be surprised. He’s sure EJ’s put it to good use.

The back of Ricky’s knees finally meet the mattress, and he falls back onto the comforter. EJ’s folded over him, his arms bracketing Ricky’s shoulders, and their faces are only inches apart. Ricky takes a breath, then another. He looks at EJ and blinks, breathes again, wonders if he’s blinking too much and if EJ is noticing.

“I’m not panicking,” Ricky says after a moment, his breathing labored. “This is normal.”

“This is normal for you?” EJ asks, and it’s half-smirk, half-worried. Ricky doesn’t know what to do with the knowledge that he’s grown to recognize this as EJ’s version of being _nice._

“Yes,” Ricky says, and then, “No. I don’t know. Is this normal for you?”

“Someone hyperventilating under me? Let me think,” EJ says contemplatively. “No.”

Ricky turns his head to the side because he doesn’t like EJ looking at him when he’s like this, when he’s smaller and unguarded, all his defense down. “Fuck you.”

“I’m _trying_ ,” EJ says plaintively.

“Do you always have to be so,” Ricky waves his hand around vaguely, “ _so_ —”

“Devastating handsome? Laden with sex-appeal? Erotically—”

Ricky stares at him, unsmiling. “I was going to say mean.”

“Oh Bowen, you haven’t seen me at _mean,_ yet,” EJ says. Ricky doesn’t know if it’s true, but he’s scared it might be. Ricky thinks there might be two or three or a dozen EJ’s hiding inside that skin, like he’s a deck of cards that Ricky’s been told to shuffle. _Is this your card?_

“I don’t like it when you call me that. By my last name, I mean.”

EJ smirks, for a second, but when he sees the look in Ricky’s eye, he softens. “Ricky,” he says slowly, and the syllables are clear, the vowels rounded out and consonants clipped. Like he’s sounding it out for someone to repeat.

“Yeah,” Ricky says, exhaling. “That’s better.” _Bowen_ is the version of himself that EJ knows at parties and on stage and when they’re in a room full of people. _Ricky_ is the real one, the one in parking lots and kisses that aren’t supposed to happen and a phone call he can’t bring himself to regret.

Here, right now, he wants to be _Ricky and EJ_ , just for a second. A stolen moment, maybe. When he leaves, tonight or tomorrow morning or at the end of the summer, Ricky thinks he’ll be able to look at EJ and see _Caswell_ , but tonight he wants to take EJ apart and find out where the real version of him is, too. He wants to shuffle through the deck and pick out the right card, hold the ace between his fingers and say _mine_.

Things happen, after that, very quickly and very slowly. EJ pushes Ricky’s t-shirt up, bit by bit, covering each new inch of exposed skin with his mouth, a pressure that makes him think _yes, god_ but _not enough._ Ricky arches into him, hates just a little bit how much his body betrays what he’s feeling. EJ’s sweatshirt comes off, somehow, and Ricky’s jeans disappear, too. Ricky knows EJ’s not wearing anything under his grey shorts because he’s not fucking _stupid._ He knows, and it fills him with this feverish, aching thing.

EJ takes Ricky apart, and he goes slow. He’s gentle and patient and kind, not because he isn’t mean but because he isn’t mean _to Ricky._ Not anymore. Not after he has Ricky spread out on his white sheets ( _1000 count Egyptian cotton),_ his fingers curled into him, one of Ricky’s hands fisted into the comforter and the other digging into the straight line of EJ's spine.

They’re quiet, not because they don’t want anyone to hear but because there’s really nothing left to say. They’ve shown all their cards, laid down their weapons, an armistice enacted on the battlefield of their skin. EJ doesn’t know if it’s ever been this quiet before, thinks of how every moment in his life has been punctuated by so much fucking _noise_ until now.

When EJ finally aligns their hips, when he pushes into Ricky and waits, for a second, to let them both adjust, it’s _right_ in this unexplainable way. Ricky takes a deep, shuddering breath, exhales, tries to relax like EJ tells him too, tries to make it good for both of them because he doesn’t quite believe EJ yet when he tells him that he’s perfect, that _you’re doing so good for me, baby_.

EJ drags his tongue along the line of Ricky’s neck, grazes his teeth over his Adam’s Apple, licks into the hollow of his throat. It’s humid in the room, ‘cause EJ forgot to close the window and now the curtains are sticking to the screen, wet with rain. It smells like dirt and sex and a summer storm, like the air is charged with lightening and other terrible and violent and delightful things.

EJ tries his best to go slow, but Ricky urges him faster, starts rotating his hips to meet EJ’s strokes, and EJ thinks _God, is this how it’s supposed to feel?_ He bites into Ricky’s shoulder, his fingertips bruising into Ricky’s hipbones, and he can’t think of anything prettier than seeing Ricky’s skin all marked up by him. He thinks of words like _mine_ and _yours_ and other things he is too afraid to say aloud so instead he says _yes_ and _perfect_ and _I’m not sure how much longer I can—_

EJ thinks a lot of these things, but Ricky doesn’t really think at all. His mind sort of shorted out after EJ got a second finger inside of him, and now his thoughts are just a jumbled stream of wants. He digs his nails into EJ’s back, locks his ankles around his body, pulls them closer because it’s still not _enough_ and it might never be. He doesn't think about how this is closest he’ll ever be to EJ, and it still might not be enough.

Ricky comes first because EJ has one hand braced on the bed and the other wrapped around Ricky’s cock, slick with sweat and pre-come. It’s messy and burns through him like a fever, like a thunderclap trapped inside his chest. EJ works him through it while he rolls his hips into Ricky, long and slow and aching until he comes, too. Then he pulls out and rolls off of Ricky after a moment, both of them too exhausted to say anything.

There’s a lot of things, in that moment, that Ricky remembers with absolute clarity: the smell of the rain in the room, the way EJ’s ankle hooked around his calf, how he turned his face so his cheek was on the pillow and he could look right at EJ, eyes closed and breathing slowly. Ricky remembers how he reached a hand out, hesitant, before remembering that he was allowed to touch EJ now, and traced the line of his jaw, brushed his thumb along his lips. He remembers EJ’s eyes opening, blue-green like a storm over the ocean, a storm far away from flat New Mexico deserts that make EJ scream, thinks of the way EJ’s lips formed around the name _Ricky_ before taking Ricky’s thumb into his mouth, his teeth grazing along the soft skin of his fingertip. 

_Is this your card?_ Maybe. For today, at least.


End file.
